About this course

offered by the United Nations Environment Programme

and the Cologne University of Applied Science

Course Summary

This MOOC enhances knowledge and skills for tackling complex issues such as resilience and transformation, sustainable development, ecosystem management, disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation and how they can be operationalized. It will benefit disaster managers and practitioners, climate change adaptation professionals, development planners, project implementers and policy makers. The course will be delivered through a series of lectures and case studies, quizzes, peer-reviewed exercises, along with additional study materials provided to the students. Lectures will be available through videos as well as online documents and will be geared for students who may not have access to high speed internet so they can follow the course. Students will be provided the opportunity to enhance their critical thinking through real life and fictitious problem solving exercises. Each week will feature an international expert who will be available to respond to questions and interact with students.

What do I need to know?

There are no prerequisites, just some willingness to learn about this innovative topic! It is however true that it will help if you have heard about disasters and climate change before starting.

Course Structure

The course is structured in two parts:

The leadership track, which is tailored for busy professionals or students curious about the topic. The leadership track will run three weeks.

The expert track is for professionals and students who seek more in-depth learning and skill development in applying ecosystem-based tools for disaster risk reduction and adaptation. The expert track will run 12 weeks with 3 weeks for the final assignment, peer review process and course wrap-up. Each unit has several quizzes, a concise background document for further reading, a discussion forum, supplementary videos with interviews with international experts and short documentary videos from around the world. In addition, world leaders were interviewed for our MOOC.

Who is teaching this course?

Instructors include international faculty members from Germany, Egypt, Austria and Switzerland, supported by a line-up of expert guest lecturers and exclusive interviews with world leaders in the field of climate change, disaster risk reduction and environment:

• Dr. Achim Steiner (Executive Director of UNEP)
• Ms. Margareta Wahlström (Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations for Disaster Risk Reduction)
• Dr. Rajendra Pachauri (Chancellor of TERI University)
• Ms. Julia Marton-Lefèvre (Director General of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature 2007-2015

Some FAQs

How much time do I need to put in taking the MOOC?

In total, we estimate that a total of 40-50 hours is needed to complete the MOOC (taking both the Leadership and Expert Tracks), which will also depend on your background and English fluency. The MOOC is roughly equivalent to a 1 –week in-class training course. This estimate is based on completing the video lectures, guest video lectures, reading materials and exercises.
Do I have to be online at specific times?
No. While new modules will be released sequentially on specific dates, you need not come online simultaneously. The lectures are not webcast real-time and you can choose the time you wish to watch them. However, there will be some deadlines for assignments and peer-to-peer reviews.

Will there be exams involved?

The Leadership track has quizzes so you can self-check your knowledge level as you go. This is, however, not a precondition for progressing to the next module. And you may, however, choose to revisit a module if you feel you did do not perform satisfactorily in a module. The Expert track has two short peer-reviewed assignments and one final peer-reviewed exercise where you will be designing your own project! The peer reviewed exercises will provide an environment for interaction between course participants. You are welcome to use any other communication tool to facilitate group assignments.

What are the interactive features in this MOOC?

Iversity has a community discussion forum that will be followed by course instructors and a roster of international “Experts of the week”. The Iversity platform offers all participants the chance to give feedback on the MOOC itself but also to start discussions on any topic related to the MOOC. During the enrolment stage of the MOOC, you will be asked to fill out some basic information about yourself and be invited to actively participate in the community discussion forum. You can also post notices on the MOOC “meeting point” or to join discussions that others have started. There will thus be ample opportunity to connect with other participants for information exchanges

In cooperation with the Global Universities Partnership on Environment and Sustainability

and the Center for Natural Resources and Development

Contributions by eye on earth

Supported by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development

exceed - Excellence Centers for Exchange and Development

and the DAAD - German Academic Exchange Service

Course instructors

Karen Sudmeier

Dr. Sudmeier leads the thematic group on disaster risk reduction for IUCN’s Commission on Ecosystems Management. She is also a senior researcher at the University of Lausanne,Institute for Earth Science, where she manages projects on landslide risk reduction and bioengineering in Nepal. She is an education and training consultant with the United Nations Environment Programme, developing training and teaching modules on ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction. She holds a PhD in Environmental Science from the University of Lausanne and Masters’ degrees in international development and forest ecology. She has authored a number of publications and scientific articles, and is a co-editor of a recent book, entitled “The Role of Ecosystems in Disaster Risk Reduction”.

Udo Nehren

Dr. Udo Nehren is a senior researcher and lecturer in Physical Geography and Ecosystem Management and the scientific coordinator of the Center for Natural Resources and Development (CNRD) at Cologne University of Applied Sciences, Germany. He holds a PhD in Geography, a diploma in Physical Geography/Geosciences, and a Master´s of Engineering in Resources Management. As practitioner he worked as consultant in environmental and traffic planning. In his academic career he emphasized on ecosystem management in tropical and subtropical environments with a particular focus on ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction, environmental change, and ecosystem services. He published several articles in these areas.

Simone Sandholz M.Eng

Dipl.-Ing. Simone Sandholz M.Eng. is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Geography, University of Innsbruck, Austria. After graduating from architecture and urban planning, she completed a postgraduate degree in conservation and holds a Master in resources management. Her fields of expertise comprise urban and regional planning and sustainable management of natural resources, with a focus on good governance and livelihood approaches.
She is researching, teaching and publishing on cultural landscapes, urban upgrading in the Global South as well as risk management in urban areas; furthermore she has managed an international research project on urban green spaces.

Marwa A. Khalifa

Dr. Khalifa is Associate Professor in Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University (ASU) in Cairo, Egypt. She has obtained her B.Sc. & M.Sc., "Urban Planning" specialization from ASU, while her PhD was a joint supervision between ASU and the University of Sheffield, UK. Dr. Khalifa's expertise in terms of research, publications, teaching and consultancy services focuses on environmental assessment & risk reduction, strategic planning, upgrading of informal settlements and participatory planning approaches. Furthermore, since 2007 Dr. Khalifa has participated in/coordinated 3 international cooperation projects with universities in EU, Latin America, South Asia and MENA Region related to higher education reform in the field of participatory planning and natural resources management.

Wolfram Lange

Wolfram Lange is research assistant and lecturer at the German Center for Rural Development (SLE) of the Humboldt University of Berlin and holds a diploma in geography from the University of Cologne. His expertise is in urban and social geography as well as regional planning and natural resources management focusing on land use management in rural and urban areas and socio-spatial analysis, climate change, disaster risk reduction. He is specialist in applying Geographic Information Systems and empirical social research. He works as well as a consultant for projects of international cooperation for sustainable development, NGOs and governmental institutions in Brazil.

Lars Ribbe

Lars Ribbe is a professor for integrated land and water resources management and director at the Institute for Technology and Resources Management in the Tropics and Subtropics (ITT), Cologne University of Applied Sciences. His work areas include river basin assessment, modelling and management and he is specifically interested in developing knowledge systems which help decision makers to cope with prevailing water resources related challenges like water scarcity and drought, floods and pollution
After obtaining degrees in Chemistry (Bremen University) and Master of Engineering (Cologne University of Applied Sciences) he received his PhD (Dr.rer.nat) in the field of Hydro-informatics at Friedrich Schiller University Jena. At ITT he is coordinating international master programs the research focus “Water-Energy and Food Security Nexus” and an international university network involving over 15 universities from around the globe (CNRD)

Harald Sander

Dr. Harald Sander is Professor of Economics and International Economics at Cologne University of Applied Sciences (CUAS) and holds a Jean Monnet Chair “Europe in the Global Economy”. He is also the director of the Institute of Global Business and Society (GLOBUS) at CUAS. He specializes in international economics and has published numerous articles in leading journals. More recently he has developed a new research and research-based teaching focus on eco-innovation in the global economy and participates with GLOBUS in a CUAS research network on the water-energy-food-security nexus.